Writing about random topics

Decoding Donald Trump’s comments about Russian hacking

If you’ve been following the news the past couple of days, one of the big headlines is that the United States’ intelligence agencies asserted that the Russian government interfered in the recent Presidential election, and that they attempted to tilt it in Trump’s favor.

Donald Trump shot back, casting doubt on the agencies’ competency – “These are the same ones that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction”, meaning that since they had no credibility in the past, why should we believe them now? He also said that hacking is too hard to verify after the fact.

Well, for one thing, those two things aren’t the same. For another, it’s quite obvious that the Russian government was involved in the attacks; hacking can be hard to verify but not always. Sometimes the trail is clear, and it is in this case.

The underlying accusation is this:

Trump has been friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the past 12 months, far friendlier than any past President

Putin is a lifelong intelligence agent, and knows how to manipulate Trump. He did it during the campaign, and is still doing it

Trump fell for Putin’s manipulations, mistaking Putin’s praise as genuine statements of admirations (Trump does this – he praises those whom praise him first, and attacks those who insult him)

Putin only praises Trump in order to manipulate Trump into reversing US foreign policy. This will give Putin and Russia a free hand to operate within their sphere of influence, since there is no other power strong enough to stand up to Russia

Trump pushes back on this because, first, he doesn’t believe (or want to believe) that he could be manipulated.

Second, by consenting that Russia did hack the election, it undermines his victory – the only reason he won is because a foreign power interfered on his behalf, and he wouldn’t have done it on his own. This undercuts the Trump brand of winning.

“While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations, including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election, including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines”

CNN went on to say :

“Trump also tried to defuse controversy over his criticism of the intelligence community and continued refusal to accept Moscow’s actions, calling the Friday meeting "constructive" and offering praise for the senior intel officials. He said he will appoint a team within 90 days to figure out ways to stop foreign hacking.”

I think there’s a clear concession from Donald Trump:

He used to say Russia wasn’t involved. And now after seeing the evidence he still can’t say they were. But he did mention them in conjunction with China hacking (which is true), other countries (also true), and other groups of people (still true) as trying to break into the US’s cyber infrastructure.

By mentioning Russia alongside others who are also known to hack the US, he is effectively conceding “Okay, you’re right” to the US intel agencies.

He concedes that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee, but he also buffers that by saying that it didn’t affect the election… which implies that his victory is not undermined, and therefore cannot be delegitimized. It also doesn’t undercut his brand.

In other words “Yes, they may have been hacked, but I still won fair and square.”

He called for a plan to be done in 90 days to combat hacking. Why do this if it wasn’t a big problem?

He didn’t make this statement on Twitter. That’s key; Trump uses Twitter to drum up support for his followers as an unfiltered source straight from The Donald. He would never use the mainstream media to issue a message that undercuts his brand

The words are coded, but still clear. Trump lost this fight, but still is good at manipulating the media, and Twitter, to come out ahead. Look at what he said after the report was leaked to NBC news right after he was briefed on the matter:

I can’t tell if Trump is being genuine or not. If he is, that is why it is a bad idea to pick fights with intelligence agencies. They don’t fight back directly, they do it passive-aggressively. The leak documents to reporters who whip up the public and distract you from your message as you spend time having to deflect from media circuses.

Yet Trump is not that naïve (I’m pretty sure he isn’t). If he didn’t know that’s how the game is played, he does now. He went to Twitter to distract from his concession, and instead tried to flip it as fake outrage that the report even leaked at all.

Trump is good at that – using Twitter to distract others in order to cover weaknesses. That’s why he started ranting about the new Celebrity Apprentice with Arnold Schwarzenegger having lower ratings. People would chase that instead of his concession.

Then, look at how he uses his concession (a loss) into a weapon against his opponents, the Democrats:

His side was strong, the other side was weak. Yet, even in spite of that, he makes this misleading Tweet:

That’s not what the intelligence agencies said, they didn’t say that the hacking had no effect, they said they don’t know how much it affected it – from no effect whatsoever to giving the election to Trump (in such a close election, especially in 3 mid-western states, small things matter).

So while Trump is saying there was no effect on the outcome, the intelligence agencies are saying “We can’t measure it because it requires asking people whether or not the revelations from the hack affected their votes – switching to Trump, or staying home and not voting for Hillary, or voting third party. And even if we asked people, they may not tell the truth. And even if they think they are telling the truth, they may be confused by their own motivations.”

Thus, while I don’t agree with anything Trump has said recently about hacking, and not trusting the intelligence agencies, and I am not comfortable with his cozy relationship with Russia, there is no doubt that he is fantastic at public relations and turning weakness into strength.